“When did you last hear from Nayland Smith?” asked my visitor.
I paused, my hand on the syphon, reflecting for a moment.
“Two months ago,” I said; “he’s a poor correspondent and rather soured,
I fancy.”
“What--a woman or something?”
“Some affair of that sort. He’s such a reticent beggar, I really know
very little about it.”
I placed a whisky and soda before the Rev. J. D. Eltham, also sliding
the tobacco jar nearer to his hand. The refined and sensitive face of
the clergy-man offered no indication of the truculent character of the
man. His scanty fair hair, already gray over the temples, was silken and
soft-looking; in appearance he was indeed a typical English churchman;
but in China he had been known as “the fighting missionary,” and had
fully deserved the title. In fact, this peaceful-looking gentleman had
directly brought about the Boxer Risings!
“You know,” he said, in his clerical voice, but meanwhile stuffing
tobacco into an old pipe with fierce energy, “I have often wondered,
Petrie--I have never left off wondering--”
“What?”
“That accursed Chinaman! Since the cellar place beneath the site of the
burnt-out cottage in Dulwich Village--I have wondered more than ever.”
He lighted his pipe and walked to the hearth to throw the match in the
grate.
“You see,” he continued, peering across at me in his oddly nervous way,
“one never knows, does one? If I thought that Dr. Fu-Manchu lived; if
I seriously suspected that that stupendous intellect, that wonderful
genius, Petrie, er--” he hesitated characteristically--“survived, I
should feel it my duty--”
“Well?” I said, leaning my elbows on the table and smiling slightly.
“If that Satanic genius were not indeed destroyed, then the peace of the
world, may be threatened anew at any moment!”
He was becoming excited, shooting out his jaw in the truculent manner I
knew, and snapping his fingers to emphasize his words; a man composed of
the oddest complexities that ever dwelt beneath a clerical frock.
“He may have got back to China, Doctor!” he cried, and his eyes had the
fighting glint in them. “Could you rest in peace if you thought that he
lived? Should you not fear for your life every time that a night-call
took you out alone? Why, man alive, it is only two years since he was
here among us, since we were searching every shadow for those awful
green eyes! What became of his band of assassins--his stranglers, his
dacoits, his damnable poisons and insects and what-not--the army of
creatures--”
He paused, taking a drink.
“You--” he hesitated diffidently--“searched in Egypt with Nayland Smith,
did you not?”
I nodded.
“Contradict me if I am wrong,” he continued; “but my impression is that
you were searching for the girl--the girl--Karamaneh, I think she was
called?”
“Yes,” I replied shortly; “but we could find no trace--no trace.”
“You--er--were interested?”
“More than I knew,” I replied, “until I realized that I had--lost her.”
“I never met Karamaneh, but from your account, and from others, she was
quite unusually--”
“She was very beautiful,” I said, and stood up, for I was anxious to
terminate that phase of the conversation.
Eltham regarded me sympathetically; he knew something of my search with
Nayland Smith for the dark-eyed, Eastern girl who had brought romance
into my drab life; he knew that I treasured my memories of her as I
loathed and abhorred those of the fiendish, brilliant Chinese doctor who
had been her master.
Eltham began to pace up and down the rug, his pipe bubbling furiously;
and something in the way he carried his head reminded me momentarily of
Nayland Smith. Certainly, between this pink-faced clergyman, with his
deceptively mild appearance, and the gaunt, bronzed, and steely-eyed
Burmese commissioner, there was externally little in common; but it was
some little nervous trick in his carriage that conjured up through the
smoky haze one distant summer evening when Smith had paced that very
room as Eltham paced it now, when before my startled eyes he had rung up
the curtain upon the savage drama in which, though I little suspected it
then, Fate had cast me for a leading role.
I wondered if Eltham’s thoughts ran parallel with mine. My own were
centered upon the unforgettable figure of the murderous Chinaman. These
words, exactly as Smith had used them, seemed once again to sound in my
ears: “Imagine a person tall, lean, and feline, high shouldered, with a
brow like Shakespeare and a face like Satan, a close-shaven skull, and
long magnetic eyes of the true cat green. Invest him with all the cruel
cunning of an entire Eastern race accumulated in one giant intellect,
with all the resources of science, past and present, and you have a
mental picture of Dr. Fu-Manchu, the ‘Yellow Peril’ incarnate in one
man.”
This visit of Eltham’s no doubt was responsible for my mood; for this
singular clergyman had played his part in the drama of two years ago.
“I should like to see Smith again,” he said suddenly; “it seems a pity
that a man like that should be buried in Burma. Burma makes a mess of
the best of men, Doctor. You said he was not married?”
“No,” I replied shortly, “and is never likely to be, now.”
“Ah, you hinted at something of the kind.”
“I know very little of it. Nayland Smith is not the kind of man to talk
much.”
“Quite so--quite so! And, you know, Doctor, neither am I; but”--he was
growing painfully embarrassed--“it may be your due--I--er--I have a
correspondent, in the interior of China--”
“Well?” I said, watching him in sudden eagerness.
“Well, I would not desire to raise--vain hopes--nor to occasion, shall
I say, empty fears; but--er... no, Doctor!” He flushed like a girl--“It
was wrong of me to open this conversation. Perhaps, when I know
more--will you forget my words, for the time?”
The telephone bell rang.
“Hullo!” cried Eltham--“hard luck, Doctor!”--but I could see that he
welcomed the interruption. “Why!” he added, “it is one o’clock!”
I went to the telephone.
“Is that Dr. Petrie?” inquired a woman’s voice.
“Yes; who is speaking?”
“Mrs. Hewett has been taken more seriously ill. Could you come at once?”
“Certainly,” I replied, for Mrs. Hewett was not only a profitable
patient but an estimable lady--“I shall be with you in a quarter of an
hour.”
I hung up the receiver.
“Something urgent?” asked Eltham, emptying his pipe.
“Sounds like it. You had better turn in.”
“I should much prefer to walk over with you, if it would not be
intruding. Our conversation has ill prepared me for sleep.”
“Right!” I said; for I welcomed his company; and three minutes later we
were striding across the deserted common.
A sort of mist floated amongst the trees, seeming in the moonlight like
a veil draped from trunk to trunk, as in silence we passed the Mound
pond, and struck out for the north side of the common.
I suppose the presence of Eltham and the irritating recollection of his
half-confidence were the responsible factors, but my mind persistently
dwelt upon the subject of Fu-Manchu and the atrocities which he had
committed during his sojourn in England. So actively was my imagination
at work that I felt again the menace which so long had hung over me; I
felt as though that murderous yellow cloud still cast its shadow upon
England. And I found myself longing for the company of Nayland Smith.
I cannot state what was the nature of Eltham’s reflections, but I can
guess; for he was as silent as I.
It was with a conscious effort that I shook myself out of this morbidly
reflective mood, on finding that we had crossed the common and were come
to the abode of my patient.
“I shall take a little walk,” announced Eltham; “for I gather that you
don’t expect to be detained long? I shall never be out of sight of the
door, of course.”
“Very well,” I replied, and ran up the steps.
There were no lights to be seen in any of the windows, which
circumstance rather surprised me, as my patient occupied, or had
occupied when last I had visited her, a first-floor bedroom in the front
of the house. My knocking and ringing produced no response for three or
four minutes; then, as I persisted, a scantily clothed and half
awake maid servant unbarred the door and stared at me stupidly in the
moonlight.
“Mrs. Hewett requires me?” I asked abruptly.
The girl stared more stupidly than ever.
“No, sir,” she said, “she don’t, sir; she’s fast asleep!”
“But some one ‘phoned me!” I insisted, rather irritably, I fear.
“Not from here, sir,” declared the now wide-eyed girl. “We haven’t got a
telephone, sir.”
For a few moments I stood there, staring as foolishly as she; then
abruptly I turned and descended the steps. At the gate I stood looking
up and down the road. The houses were all in darkness. What could be the
meaning of the mysterious summons? I had made no mistake respecting the
name of my patient; it had been twice repeated over the telephone; yet
that the call had not emanated from Mrs. Hewett’s house was now palpably
evident. Days had been when I should have regarded the episode as
preluding some outrage, but to-night I felt more disposed to ascribe it
to a silly practical joke.
Eltham walked up briskly.
“You’re in demand to-night, Doctor,” he said. “A young person called
for you almost directly you had left your house, and, learning where you
were gone, followed you.”
“Indeed!” I said, a trifle incredulously. “There are plenty of other
doctors if the case is an urgent one.”
“She may have thought it would save time as you were actually up and
dressed,” explained Eltham; “and the house is quite near to here, I
understand.”
I looked at him a little blankly. Was this another effort of the unknown
jester?
“I have been fooled once,” I said. “That ‘phone call was a hoax--”
“But I feel certain,” declared Eltham, earnestly, “that this is genuine!
The poor girl was dreadfully agitated; her master has broken his leg and
is lying helpless: number 280, Rectory Grove.”
“Where is the girl?” I asked, sharply.
“She ran back directly she had given me her message.”
“Was she a servant?”
“I should imagine so: French, I think. But she was so wrapped up I had
little more than a glimpse of her. I am sorry to hear that some one has
played a silly joke on you, but believe me--” he was very earnest--“this
is no jest. The poor girl could scarcely speak for sobs. She mistook me
for you, of course.”
“Oh!” said I grimly, “well, I suppose I must go. Broken leg, you
said?--and my surgical bag, splints and so forth, are at home!”
“My dear Petrie!” cried Eltham, in his enthusiastic way--“you no doubt
can do something to alleviate the poor man’s suffering immediately. I
will run back to your rooms for the bag and rejoin you at 280, Rectory
Grove.”
“It’s awfully good of you, Eltham--”
He held up his hand.
“The call of suffering humanity, Petrie, is one which I may no more
refuse to hear than you.”
I made no further protest after that, for his point of view was evident
and his determination adamant, but told him where he would find the
bag and once more set out across the moonbright common, he pursuing a
westerly direction and I going east.
Some three hundred yards I had gone, I suppose, and my brain had been
very active the while, when something occurred to me which placed a new
complexion upon this second summons. I thought of the falsity of the
first, of the improbability of even the most hardened practical joker
practising his wiles at one o’clock in the morning. I thought of our
recent conversation; above all I thought of the girl who had delivered
the message to Eltham, the girl whom he had described as a French
maid--whose personal charm had so completely enlisted his sympathies.
Now, to this train of thought came a new one, and, adding it, my
suspicion became almost a certainty.
I remembered (as, knowing the district, I should have remembered before)
that there was no number 280 in Rectory Grove.
Pulling up sharply I stood looking about me. Not a living soul was
in sight; not even a policeman. Where the lamps marked the main paths
across the common nothing moved; in the shadows about me nothing
stirred. But something stirred within me--a warning voice which for long
had lain dormant.
What was afoot?
A breeze caressed the leaves overhead, breaking the silence with
mysterious whisperings. Some portentous truth was seeking for admittance
to my brain. I strove to reassure myself, but the sense of impending
evil and of mystery became heavier. At last I could combat my strange
fears no longer. I turned and began to run toward the south side of the
common--toward my rooms--and after Eltham.
I had hoped to head him off, but came upon no sign of him. An all-night
tramcar passed at the moment that I reached the high road, and as I ran
around behind it I saw that my windows were lighted and that there was a
light in the hall.
My key was yet in the lock when my housekeeper opened the door.
“There’s a gentleman just come, Doctor,” she began--
I thrust past her and raced up the stairs into my study.
Standing by the writing-table was a tall, thin man, his gaunt face brown
as a coffee-berry and his steely gray eyes fixed upon me. My heart gave
a great leap--and seemed to stand still.
It was Nayland Smith!
“Smith,” I cried. “Smith, old man, by God, I’m glad to see you!”
He wrung my hand hard, looking at me with his searching eyes; but there
was little enough of gladness in his face. He was altogether grayer than
when last I had seen him--grayer and sterner.
“Where is Eltham?” I asked.
Smith started back as though I had struck him.
“Eltham!” he whispered--“Eltham! is Eltham here?”
“I left him ten minutes ago on the common--”
Smith dashed his right fist into the palm of his left hand and his eyes
gleamed almost wildly.
“My God, Petrie!” he said, “am I fated always to come too late?”
My dreadful fears in that instant were confirmed. I seemed to feel my
legs totter beneath me.
“Smith, you don’t mean--”
“I do, Petrie!” His voice sounded very far away. “Fu-Manchu is here; and
Eltham, God help him... is his first victim!”